DPChallenge: A Digital Photography Contest You are not logged in. (log in or register) 
 

DPChallenge Forums >> Challenge Suggestions >> No More Challenge Descriptions
Pages:  
Showing posts 51 - 63 of 63, (reverse)
AuthorThread
 12/28/2005 04:24:28 AM · #51
Originally posted by Kavey:
It's a suggestion that has been made regularly for as long as I've been here.

I'm all for it - having just the challenge title with no supporting description would really encourage users to interpret the challenge more widely and focus less on arguing back and forth about the minutae of dictionary nuances. It would allow the challenge title to be a launching pad for creativity rather than a constant cause for debate.

Sadly, I don't think it's a change that's destined to happen.


Haven't read the whole thread, so what I have to say may have been said already, but I differ in my opinion on this matter. Contrary to what you suggest, I'd actually be in favor of (occasional) more specific explanations, allowing for a narrower range of interpretations of the challenge theme. This is because I think there is as much benefit in an open-ended approach, with which the photographer can think as abstractly as he pleases, as there is benefit in a highly controlled approach, with which the photographer must make the most of what he is given.

I wouldn't mind at all having more challenges without descriptions at all (e.g., the current "Mother" challenge is cool by me), but an occasional challenge with a description like "Greed: Take a picture expressing the concept of greed, avoiding the use of green and yellow in your image" would also be welcome.
01/12/2006 12:05:04 AM · #52
Originally posted by Kavey:

Sadly, I don't think it's a change that's destined to happen.


It finally happened in this weeks open challenges.
 01/12/2006 12:09:08 AM · #53
I have a feeling it will be on an "as needed" basis. If a topic doesn't need a description it won't have one. If it's critical to the challenge (like "photograph 1 pair of trousers, 3 grapefruits and a hammer") it will be included.
 01/12/2006 12:29:32 AM · #54
As a new guy in the field of photography (ok, so maybe my stuff is only "pictures" and not quite "photography" yet :) )I am sad to see the descriptions go. I liked the fact that they would give a starting point if you were drawing blanks. Oh well, I guess I will deal.
 01/12/2006 12:37:29 AM · #55
I don't think the descriptions are officially gone. We're just testing out some of the suggestions to see how it works.

An interesting note about this week's challenges for those new to the site, take a look back in the challenge archives...roadsigns was the first challenge ever on DPC. Every year, we've done an anniversary challenge with the same topic. This year it just got broken into two. :)

01/12/2006 12:39:40 AM · #56
Originally posted by butch81385:
As a new guy in the field of photography (ok, so maybe my stuff is only "pictures" and not quite "photography" yet :) )I am sad to see the descriptions go. I liked the fact that they would give a starting point if you were drawing blanks. Oh well, I guess I will deal.


Yes but they usually devolved into meaningless goo. Even without the descriptions the topics often devolve.

Although with the new "goading" rules and a stronger police force it will be interesting to see how / if that changes.
 01/12/2006 01:00:02 AM · #57
To date, Rubber Ducky remains my favorite challenge.

It was the most restricted challenge I have seen here, but the results blew me away.

I enjoy having to think about my photo BECAUSE of the restrictions, so the more, the merrier (mixed in with regular free studies, please).
 01/12/2006 01:15:19 AM · #58
Originally posted by Kavey:
It's a suggestion that has been made regularly for as long as I've been here.

I'm all for it - having just the challenge title with no supporting description would really encourage users to interpret the challenge more widely and focus less on arguing back and forth about the minutae of dictionary nuances. It would allow the challenge title to be a launching pad for creativity rather than a constant cause for debate.

Sadly, I don't think it's a change that's destined to happen.


Sadly, the ....Launching Pad theory you allude to most certainly did not give rise to a plethora of creativity in the "Mother" challenge. One could revisit the thread that was created when this challenge first came to light, and review all of the wonderful predictions that finally ... now that the shackles had been removed... we would be blessed with untold creative masterpieces.

DIDN'T HAPPEN... if anything, the percentage of truly good photographs in this challenge paled by comparisson. I have witnessed some absolutely astounding and unbelievably creative photos submitted on this site, and for the most part... their creators managed to do so notwitstanding the restrictions imposed upon them.

Just a thought

Ray

01/12/2006 01:53:16 AM · #59
Originally posted by RayEthier:

Sadly, the ....Launching Pad theory you allude to most certainly did not give rise to a plethora of creativity in the "Mother" challenge. One could revisit the thread that was created when this challenge first came to light, and review all of the wonderful predictions that finally ... now that the shackles had been removed... we would be blessed with untold creative masterpieces.

DIDN'T HAPPEN...

Ray


Amen to that! I thought, "Cool! This challenge is gonna be full of mommies and babies, but there's many other ways of looking at the idea "mother". A phrase that has always been close to my heart is "The sea is the mother of us all", and it's TRUE, according to scientists anyway, that life on earth sprang from the sea, and I love seascapes (didn't realize that, didya? jejeje), so I decided to go with that.

Went out shooting several times with this specific goal, to somehow bridge a vast sea to a bit of land, and ended up with what I believe is a very decent image, although admittedly the fine water detail doesn't come through well at 640 pixels. Anyway, it seemed reasonably inside-the-box to me, given that the challenge is one word: "Mother".

My result? 4.587, 110th place out of 127, half a dozen dnmtc comments. And so it goes. Absent any challenge description at all, it appears to me that the challenge becomes to meet each voter's expectation of the challenge. Arguably, had there been a description that said "Mother can be many things, such as x, y, z, or 'mother nature'", for example, then the non-standard "mother" shots might have fared better. I donno.

It's my gut feeling that this "no-description" trend is actually going to stifle creativity, and that descriptions can, and should, be written in such a way as to at least allude to the manifold possibilities of a topic so photographers and voters alike aren't out balancing on a tightrope all alone with their thoughts.

Alternatively, of course, had it been the INTENTION of the challenge-makers to "promote" a challenge of excellent renderings of human motherhood, they could have said so...

I'm not anywhere near as worked up about this as this post may sound; I've just been thinking a lot about the value of one-word challenges.

Robt.
 01/12/2006 04:14:15 AM · #60
Originally posted by mk:
I don't think the descriptions are officially gone. We're just testing out some of the suggestions to see how it works. ...

So what criteria will you be using to judge the success or failure of the no descriptions experiment? Number of entries? Level of scores? Amount of (or content of) remarks about them in the forums? What result are you after here?

I personally think we need descriptions to make the topics challenging. Often times the descriptions need to be thought out and refined as opposed to just quoteing what someone has posted in a Challenge Suggestions forum thread.
 01/12/2006 04:49:42 AM · #61
Originally posted by jpeters:
Maybe we could abolish challenge descriptions on most challenges, no description would allow for greater interperetations and fewer complaints from the so-called DNMC Nazis.

Well then, perhaps we should take this a step further using this argument. We should abolish challenge titles too. They are far too inhibiting. Look at what happened to poor Bear_music's mother entry. That way we would have the widest interpretation which sounds like it would be really cool to some people

Brett
 01/12/2006 07:17:31 AM · #62
Originally posted by kirsty_mcn:
how about banning discussion of current challenges in the forums??

*runs and hides*


I'd agree with this.
 01/12/2006 07:22:20 AM · #63
Now its just silly to say that if we remove descriptions that you should remove names of the challenge as well; the old fallacy of the slippery slope; (I had a concentration in philosophy and pseudointellectual studies)

Here's another fallacy, of Black and WHite... there are two opinions on this site; the first is a tecnocratic, stifling, fascist position that the challenge must be set in stone, and by Jesus, if the challenge says take a picture of a rock in a forest it better be a real forest na dnot just a stand of trees, and it better be a real literal rock and not a boulder or pebble or a guy named Rock- or else I will vote you a lower score for not meeting the challenge even though it could be up for interpretation and reasonable minds could differ;

and tthen there is the reasonable, creative, artististic mind that says; sure, we need boundaries, thats why we are here to challenge ourselves in different areas, if the challenge says "rock in a forest" I can and will take a picture of a figurative rock in a figurative forest if I want; I will photograph for the sake of art and not robotic frame exposure.

Pages:  
Current Server Time: 07/20/2025 08:12:12 AM

Please log in or register to post to the forums.


Home - Challenges - Community - League - Photos - Cameras - Lenses - Learn - Help - Terms of Use - Privacy - Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2025 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 07/20/2025 08:12:12 AM EDT.